Does avoiding bad voting rules result in good ones?

Distance rationalization of voting rules is based on the minimization of the distance to some plausible criterion, such as unanimity or the Condorcet criterion. We propose a new alternative: the optimization of the distance to undesirable voting rules, namely, the dictatorial voting rules. Applying a plausible metric between social choice functions, we obtain two results: (i) the plurality rule minimizes the sum of the distances to the dictatorial rules and can be regarded in some sense as a compromise lying between all dictatorial rules; (ii) the reverse-plurality rule maximizes the distance to the closest dictator.